Peter Guber: Failure leads to success
Peter Guber shared his leadership story to business and political leaders, members of the academe, and sports personalities who came to see and listen to him.
MANILA, Philippines — The way to the top is never easy, not even for this 76-year-old Hollywood legend, story-teller, educator, sportsman.
“Behind every success is failure,” said Peter Guber last Tuesday at the packed grand ballroom of the Sofitel Philippine Plaza.
Guber is in town for the ANC Leadership Series, which brings in top-caliber international speakers for one-day engagements.
He took the podium, and spoke for nearly an hour, before an audience that paid P10,000 for the cheapest seats, of his remarkable story.
“Failure and success are very close together. This close,” he said, motioning with his fingers like they were millimeters apart.
Guber worked his way to the top, joining Columbia Pictures as a management trainee in 1968. Five years later, he was promoted to vice president of worldwide production. In 1989, he became chairman of the board and CEO of the company now known as Sony Pictures.
On his way to the top, he produced or helped produce hits like Taxi Driver, Midnight Express, Rain Man, The Color Purple, Flashdance, Awakenings, Basic Instinct and Philadelphia.
Also along the way, as he wrote books, he dealt with political icons like Fidel Castro, Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela, and great sportsmen like Muhammad Ali, Magic Johnson and Pat Riley.
This fueled his love for sports, and now he’s neck-deep into it, as co-owner of reigning NBA champions Golden State Warriors, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Los Angeles Football Club.
It was in 2010 when Guber, a professor at UCLA for nearly 40 years, and partner Joe Lacob, and 17 other members of the ownership group, purchased the Warriors franchise for $450 million.
“We paid more than what we had to,” said the chairman and CEO of Mandalay Entertainment.
“But we realized the San Francisco market. We knew there was a market for basketball in the area. There was this ignitable audience, and so we went for it,” he said.
As expected, it wasn’t all roses.
“It was a long journey of many nights, many days and uncertainty,” said the man with a net worth of $800 million.
Years later, the Warriors were NBA champions once more, breaking a lengthy 40-year drought by winning the crowns in the 2014-15 and 2016-17 seasons.
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